Doug Lombardi on the PC

[Evo]

Shacknews recently caught up with the voice of Valve, Doug Lombardi. In this first half of a two part interview Doug talks about the PC Gaming Alliance, the future of PC gaming and system requirements in current PC games. This is an extremely interesting interview and you can read a little bit of it now:

Shack: Does the responsibility lie somewhat with the hardware manufacturers to market their products in a reasonable way, or is it up to the developers to set sane requirements?
[br]
Doug Lombardi: Oh I think it's totally the fault of the developers. Totally the fault of the developers. I mean the graphics guys, their job to keep pushing the envelope, and as they push the envelope, move the lower-end cards down to a nice price point, so that there's always this evolution that's happening. If you're a hot rod type of guy, and you want to spend $400 on the latest thing, you want to have a smoking machine, and when Left 4 Dead comes out you want to run it at its highest resolution with killer framerates, and call your buddies over for a beer and make them all drool over your system, awesome. But if you're just a guy who wants a decent PC for less than a thousand bucks, and wants to be able to run games on it, there should be a card out there that runs games at a decent famerate and decent fluidity. Then it's on us to write for both of those guys.

Go read the rest of it here.

 

[Nitre]

Interesting stuff, liked it.

 

[Polaris]

People say, "Oh, we've got to target those high-end core gamers. We have the best graphics, sweetest screenshots, and we'll get more press, and we'll win." Okay, well, you'll win in the pre-launch phase. Then when the game comes out, and 60-70% of the people who don't have that sweet machine--maybe even higher numbers, maybe 80% don't have that sweet machine--well you just cut off your ability to sell to all of those guys

Words of truth and wisdom. So true.

 

[leib10]

*cough*Crysis*cough

 

[Crispy]

He talks a lot of truth, but there's no absence of hype in them there words.

Left 4 Dead comes out you want to run it at its highest resolution with killer framerates, and call your buddies over for a beer and make them all drool over your system, awesome.

Now, the thing I take objection to here is that judging by the footage released (and all released footage unless making a low-end high-end comparison is always going to be showcasing the game in the very best light, i.e. GFX turned up to the max), L4D is by no means in any way a graphically astounding game. A lot of the animations (or, more specifically, the choice of animations) are average, and the graphics aren't that high spec at all. So to invoke L4D in this sentence is nothing more than name-dropping a Valve product to a prospective Valve audience. A more objective stance would have been to take a game that is actually pushing graphics and also has good lower-end scalability.

I do agree with his gameplay>performance>graphics scale, though. I upgrade my PC maybe once every 2 years, and I have a steadyish job that gives me a couple of hundred <poundsign GG HL2.net> every month to play with. I like the fact that I can play TF2 at the lowest settings and I have never felt like the game looks like shit. Valve are doing a very good job in this regard. For the MP stuff I'm not so fussed about high-end graphics, but I've had HL2.Ep2 sitting on my Steam account since the OB came out waiting for me to invest in a GB or so more RAM to do it justice. Therein lies the beauty of Steam, that I can buy a game and have it sitting there waiting for when the time is right. In fact I think this bank holiday weekend might see me send off for that RAM and a copy of Bioshock in preparation.

 

[hool10]

Yeah the only thing I hate about the Source engine are the textures. Cables are black lines, dirt looks grainy, and forest trees look 2D. They always defend it too but I mean comparing it to other engines it lacks graphic wise. According to my interview with Mike B on L4D, they have a lot of new graphics coming to L4D soon. He couldn't say what they were though. The last time we saw it, it looked fine. This time it looked really creepy and good. Just wait until November.

 

[highlander]

Nice read

 

[Hazar]

he's saying games should be scalable... hardly revolutionary

 

[reaper47]

With development cycles reaching 3-4 years, game studios simply overestimate the speed gain with coming hardware generations. The two times as fast, two times as cheap every year formula doesn't work anymore.

It's hardware requirements that kill PC sales and it's about time developers realize that.

 

[Polaris]

Part II

Valve Interview Part 2: Left 4 Dead Demo Potential, the Evolution of Steam, and More.

Right now Left 4 Dead is our big game for this year. We'll be making some announcements probably at the end of the year in terms of what's happening beyond Left 4 Dead.

WTF? No Episode Three? This makes me very sad.
For the first time I'm not sure if Valve is heading a right way...

 

[Asuka]

You expected Episode 3 the biggest episode to come out this year ROLF! Id say 3rd quarter next year for sure.

 

[Polaris]

I expected announcements, screens and videos about Episode Three, not game.

 

[reaper47]

I'm sure we hear something after l4d is out. Valve always had a big "next" and was never shy talking about that. So once l4d is out, we'll hear overly hypie news regarding Episode 3 (I hope for global illumination and a new gun. Would be about time *fingers crossed*)

 

[boglito]

If the steam-numbers add so much to the whole picture, why are they not released? Because they don't. Sure, steam is great, especially for Valve, but thinking it budges the world-wide sales numbers for the PC is lunacy. It's good old fashioned marketing-bs.

I like how the success stories of the PC are steam, stardock, wow, the sims, and popcap. Of those only the two first hold any merit to a "hardcore" gamer (or whatever you like to call gamers who don't find delivering pizzas in a 2d grid entertaining) and stardock gets a shitload more credit than they deserve due to their anti-antipiracy attitude. Kinda the same thing Mr. Lombardi is going for here.

If the creators of cod4, assassin's creed, crysis, supreme commander, gow/ut3 (and more I can't remember at the top of my head) say that PC-gaming is going in the wrong direction then I think it is prudent to listen.

 

[reaper47]

If the creators of cod4, assassin's creed, crysis, supreme commander, gow/ut3 (and more I can't remember at the top of my head) say that PC-gaming is going in the wrong direction then I think it is prudent to listen.

All the games in this list show exactly the problems Valve is talking about. For years consoles were behind PC hardware, nowadays they're not far behind at all because they are sold beneath their production cost. Valve isn't denying that PC sales are down, they just came up with a reason beyond "swashbuckling pirates from Sweden". And instead of giving up, they come up with solutions - and make money.

 

[boglito]

All the games in this list show exactly the problems Valve is talking about. For years consoles were behind PC hardware, nowadays they're not far behind at all because they are sold beneath their production cost. Valve isn't denying that PC sales are down, they just came up with a reason beyond "swashbuckling pirates from Sweden". And instead of giving up, they come up with solutions - and make money.

The thing is that not every game developer can have their own steam (and actually using steam defeats the purpose since valve grabs a huge slice of the pie) and there is nothing to be done about the competition from consoles. Piracy is not the only problem facing the PC, but it is a very serious one, and one that we shouldn't have to endure.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

If the creators of cod4, assassin's creed, crysis, supreme commander, gow/ut3 (and more I can't remember at the top of my head) say that PC-gaming is going in the wrong direction then I think it is prudent to listen.

What does Ubisoft know about PC gaming have you seen their ports? Rainbow 6 etc. They are really poor and PC gamers are waiting longer to get weaker games then there console counterparts. They are buggy unoptimized etc. Even Asaassin's creed requirements were ridiculously high. And they wonder why no one buys their game on the PC.

Cyrsis, well i think Doug spoke about about it even though he didn't mention it's name, that Crysis set the requirements to high, yes it looks great and everything but if the majority of PCs out there can't handle it well, what's the point of them buying? You've just cut out a large part of your customer base.

GOW, a weak port of a game that's over a year old, and they expect it to sell well?

UT3, Again you can see the 360 was the lead platform and that hurt the PC version, i know loads of UT fans who didn't get this because of this.

The main thing that is hurting the PC are the poor console ports we get significantly later.
Yet they will blame piracy and come with some stupid figure like 80% of their game is pirated, the PC is NOT the only one to suffer from Piracy.

 

[boglito]

What does Ubisoft know about PC gaming have you seen their ports? Rainbow 6 etc. They are really poor and PC gamers are waiting longer to get weaker games then there console counterparts. They are buggy unoptimized etc. Even Asaassin's creed requirements were ridiculously high. And they wonder why no one buys their game on the PC.

Cyrsis, well i think Doug spoke about about it even though he didn't mention it's name, that Crysis set the requirements to high, yes it looks great and everything but if the majority of PCs out there can't handle it well, what's the point of them buying? You've just cut out a large part of your customer base.

GOW, a weak port of a game that's over a year old, and they expect it to sell well?

UT3, Again you can see the 360 was the lead platform and that hurt the PC version, i know loads of UT fans who didn't get this because of this.

The main thing that is hurting the PC are the poor console ports we get significantly later.
Yet they will blame piracy and come with some stupid figure like 80% of their game is pirated, the PC is NOT the only one to suffer from Piracy.

I disagree. I think that the reason Ubisoft is not prioritizing the PC is that they know they will sell less games for it, partly due to piracy. While it is possible to pirate games for the xbox it is very much more effort than pirating for PC and afaik involve voiding HW-guarantee (which is why ms are not breaking their backs to fix rrod) and potentially being banned from live as well as actually copying the dvds, all of which are non-issues on the PC. The platform that shares the simplicity of PC-piracy is the PSP, and what do we observe? The PSP is selling a decent amount of HW, but an incredibly low amount of SW. Maybe partly because the games suck (which is what a pirate would say), but I think also because of piracy.

 

[ríomhaire]

The thing is that not every game developer can have their own steam (and actually using steam defeats the purpose since valve grabs a huge slice of the pie).

I'm pretty sure devs that sell directly through Steam get a hell of a lot more of the profits than those that sell through publishers in shops (I don't know about the ones that sell through publishers through Steam though).

 

[boglito]

I'm pretty sure devs that sell directly through Steam get a hell of a lot more of the profits than those that sell through publishers in shops (I don't know about the ones that sell through publishers through Steam though).

Yeah, but for big games you are going to need the publishers. Ofcourse smaller studios and one-man teams make a killing on steam, but I also want those big nice games and I am very frustrated by all the people that really want the same as me but are not willing to pay for it even when they can afford it simply because "why pay when it's free on torrent".

 

[PimpinPenguin]

I disagree. I think that the reason Ubisoft is not prioritizing the PC is that they know they will sell less games for it, partly due to piracy. While it is possible to pirate games for the xbox it is very much more effort than pirating for PC and afaik involve voiding HW-guarantee (which is why ms are not breaking their backs to fix rrod) and potentially being banned from live as well as actually copying the dvds, all of which are non-issues on the PC. The platform that shares the simplicity of PC-piracy is the PSP, and what do we observe? The PSP is selling a decent amount of HW, but an incredibly low amount of SW. Maybe partly because the games suck (which is what a pirate would say), but I think also because of piracy.

I agree with you that piracy is a bigger problem on the PC, but i don't think that's the only reason why games are selling less on the PC. For example with Ubisoft its not so bad getting the game late if we just got a good port which we unfortunatly don't. Resident Evil 4 PC done by Ubisoft a game i so looked forward to for the PC got delayed for over a year, then the final port was the worst i have ever seen, no gui ,no mouse support, poor gamepad implementation. Graphics WORST than the PS2 version there are no excuses for that. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 another game i was going to buy till i hear it's worst than the 360 version with more graphical glitches and very slow performance.These are the reason people like me are not buying the games,they lose sales though this not just piracy which they need to learn.
Fair enough if Ubisoft doesn't want to priorities the PC i don't blame them, but if they can't be bothered to put the work in the PC versions then they should not complain that the PC is dying cause no ones buying their crappy ports.
I stand by my reason that if a console port come out at the same time as the console version with decent work done to it so it doesn't feel like a port, then the PC version can sell very well.Hell it could even out sell the Console versions look at the Orange Box.

Don't forget the royalty cost that Sony and Microsoft take from each game sold on the console. Least Steam give more to the publishers than retail.

 

[boglito]

I agree with you that piracy is a bigger problem on the PC, but i don't think that's the only reason why games are selling less on the PC. For example with Ubisoft its not so bad getting the game late if we just got a good port which we unfortunatly don't. Resident Evil 4 PC done by Ubisoft a game i so looked forward to for the PC got delayed for over a year, then the final port was the worst i have ever seen, no gui ,no mouse support, poor gamepad implementation. Graphics WORST than the PS2 version there are no excuses for that. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 another game i was going to buy till i hear it's worst than the 360 version with more graphical glitches and very slow performance.These are the reason people like me are not buying the games,they lose sales though this not just piracy which they need to learn.
Fair enough if Ubisoft doesn't want to priorities the PC i don't blame them, but if they can't be bothered to put the work in the PC versions then they should not complain that the PC is dying cause no ones buying their crappy ports.
I stand by my reason that if a console port come out at the same time as the console version with decent work done to it so it doesn't feel like a port, then the PC version can sell very well.Hell it could even out sell the Console versions look at the Orange Box.

Don't forget the royalty cost that Sony and Microsoft take from each game sold on the console. Least Steam give more to the publishers than retail.

Ofcourse piracy isn't the only problem, I just think that it is a really big problem. A shitty port isn't going to sell and everybody knows that, but a nicely made game will sell even with high system-reqs, if it is not available for free. If piracy for the PC was as complicated as piracy for the xbox there would imo not be any developers complaining about it. It's just too easy and "everybody" does it. I know a guy with a USD 150k paycheck, and he still pirates games and software. Heck, even my mom is using torrent to download things she could just as well buy.

 

[ríomhaire]

You know what? I was really hyped for RE4 PC. I couldn't wait to buy it. Then when it came out and I heard about what a shitty port it was I decided I didn't want to spend money on it and got it pirated instead.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

You know what? I was really hyped for RE4 PC. I couldn't wait to buy it. Then when it came out and I heard about what a shitty port it was I decided I didn't want to spend money on it and got it pirated instead.

I know what you mean. But it ended up not even being worth pirated.

 

[ríomhaire]

I thought it was ok once you downloaded a mod to change the controls. The mouse aim mods aren't very good but if you use the mouse in conjuction with the keyboard it works quite well.

 

[Crispy]

The "PC piracy" argument falls apart when you look at DS homebrew and DS games sales.

(Actually there is still more to be said that the majority of DS owners won't have easy access to a flash cart -generally sold via internet sites- versus the access PC users have to bittorrent sites for pirated games- but even that notwithstanding DS games are strill selling strong.)

I think it boils down to the fact that PC devs need to be more intelligent about rewarding paying customers instead of punishing all players.

 

[PvtRyan]

I think Intel is also party to blame, for making the vast majority of PCs unfit for games and they have been doing so for many years. Intel is by a huge margin the biggest manufacturer for graphics hardware and also by leaps and bounds the worst. It's time for affordable onboard graphics that are actually capable of running some games.

 

[605Scorpion]

I thought it was ok once you downloaded a mod to change the controls. The mouse aim mods aren't very good but if you use the mouse in conjuction with the keyboard it works quite well.

Once I found out about joy2key I had grotesque amounts of fun with PC RE4. Easily gets a 8 or 9/10 out of me.

 

[Mahalis]

A more objective stance would have been to take a game that is actually pushing graphics and also has good lower-end scalability.

Agreed. Unreal is a good one for that - scales fantastically well to lower-spec hardware. And he might've mentioned its availability on Steam, as well.
Still, the more hype there is for L4D, the more people will buy it, and the more money Valve makes off it, the better. Can't blame him for name-dropping a bit.

 

[ríomhaire]

Agreed. Unreal is a good one for that - scales fantastically well to lower-spec hardware.

I installed the UT3 demo on my PC back before I got my new graphics card (old one was an X300) and it played perfectly smoothly but looked like a piece of complete crap. I'm no graphics whore but it looked worse than UT1.

 

[reaper47]

I also feel like their main argument is that they sell more on consoles than on PC. Maybe. But that doesn't mean that PC games are in the dramatic decline we hear about. What is the standard for good sales today? 1 Million copies? 2 Million? In a month?

Tell those figures to a company 8 years ago, they would have laughed.

4 years development cycles also mean more cost, more pressure to sell many, many copies. It's exactly the same like with hollywood productions these days.

Deus Ex sold how many copies? 100.000? That game is a true classic and wasn't considered a flop. It would today. Because of pirates!

 

[Mahalis]

I installed the UT3 demo on my PC back before I got my new graphics card (old one was an X300) and it played perfectly smoothly but looked like a piece of complete crap. I'm no graphics whore but it looked worse than UT1.

Might be the "Screen Percentage" setting. I'm mystified as to why they included that - it renders the scene at a fraction of your actual screen resolution, then upscales it, making absolutely everything look like pixelated blurry ass, for no performance gain that I can detect. With that at 100, and everything else at lowest possible levels, UT3 still looks pretty good to me.